Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 October 17

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October 17

Translating foreign language pages

Hi, I've translated a page from Bulgarian Wikipedia into English and I want to know how to put it up on English Wikipedia with links to the Bulgarian Wikipedia page.

I saw something about tagging the original page for translation, but I can't figure out how to do that (sorry I'm a technophobe :-( ) Pignut (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pignut (talk • contribs) 15:07, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Create the page in the usual way, then click "Edit links" in the "Languages" pane on the left to add the interlanguage link (interwiki links used to be added by putting them manually at the bottom of the article, like this - [[bg:тест]], but the mechanism seems to have changed) Asmrulz (talk) 19:14, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Once you've created the page, go back to the Bulgarian version of the page and click the equivalent of "Edit links" in the "Language" pane on the left. This will take you to the Bulgarian page's Wikidata item. Then you can simply add the English Wikipedia page there. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:51, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

@Pignut: It is important that you preserve attribution by noting the source of the translation in your edit summary when creating the article and, preferably, by putting {{translated page}} in the article's talk page. See Wikipedia:Translation#How to translate for general guidelines. Deor (talk) 15:04, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Why does the quiet the whole Euro-Asian continent uses the Guarani (native americans) word JAGUAR for this animal,

but Brasil, the country, where this Jaguar animals live, use to say Onça to this animal? https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_onca This makes no sense! The Portugiese have exported a word to the whole word from a colony to europe and today the colony is using a different word for this animal. --Maxjob314 (talk) 17:21, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Well the Portuguese brought back the Tupi-Guarani word "yaguara" and spread it to Europe, but modern Brazilians seem to prefer a word derived from Old French ("once", ounce) from ancient Greek "λύγξ", lynx. Do we have any Brazilian editors who can explain why? Dbfirs 20:16, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

It may have to do with the fact that yaguara is a general term for large carnivore, and can include dog in its meaning. Jaguar#Etymology. That means when the first settlers saw a jaguar and asked what it was they may have been told it was a predator, and only later from experience learned that the word was too vague, and hence appropriated lynx, since there was an Iberian lynx, but no South American one. Compare the use of polecat to refer to skunks in the US, while Americans call actual polecats "ferrets". μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the most common term in American English for skunks is skunk. I wasn't aware that they could be called polecats. I'm guessing that's a regionalism from the South and/or maybe parts of the Midwest. Note that Medeis is from South Jersey, whose speech includes some features in common with dialects farther south. This source bears me out. Marco polo (talk) 14:00, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

I think "polecat" for "skunk" is Appalachian, mostly. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:49, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

To further clarify, for English speakers in the Old World, a lynx is one of these and a polecat is one of these and have been for a very long time. Alansplodge (talk) 15:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

If there is such a thing as a polecat, I always thought, weasel. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:41, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Here in the UK, we have polecats (which are very rare), the domesticated version being a ferret, and the very similar-looking weasels and stoats; hence the schoolboy joke "weasels are weasily recognised and stoats are stoatally different". Alansplodge (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

In America, a polecat is a skunk. Although weasels can be pretty smelly too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:08, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

In 'merica, a polecat is more like this thing , and a skunk is always a skunk. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:26, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

No, I personally don't use polecat for "skunk", nor have I ever heard any person use it in real life. I've just come acrost it in literature and depictions of "hillbillies"--along the lines of Appalachia and the Midwest as mentioned above. I might just as well have given the example of the marmot, which I do either call a groundhog or a woodchuck, as well as a marmot. There's also the confusion with elk which means moose in Europe and wapiti in North America. μηδείς (talk) 19:37, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Add to the list of mixed terms, the whole buffalo-bison-wisent thing as well. --Jayron32 19:43, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

More schoolboy humour - The difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your hands in a buffalo... Alansplodge (talk) 21:08, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

What's the difference between light and hard? You CAN sleep with a light on. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 07:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)